But there had to be a good reason for his current absence, even if he didn’t know what that was quite yet. Not only had he been extensively trained, but he had come with his own self-preservation skills, and he doubted severely he would be an easy man to take down.
It was only a matter of time until he could prove that theory.
“You never did mention why you hate the Albanian syndicate,” Uilleam said thoughtfully, pressing the unmarked key card against the scanner until it blinked green and opened the door.
“No,” Skorpion answered. “I didn’t.”
A non-answer.
The man guarded his secrets as one would their fortune. “You don’t think I’d use that information against you, do you?”
“I don’t think you’d be able to help yourself.”
Uilleam didn’t have a response for that as they boarded the elevator and headed up to the 35th floor.
The Albanians were already waiting for them by the time they reached the room at the end of the lengthy hallway.
They were smart, these brothers. While they were sure to keep their security in the room with them, they had done him a service by having the men leave their guns on the table in front of them.
Their small way of saying he would at least see them coming when they struck.
He couldn’t say he minded the gesture.
“You must be Jetmir Besnik,” Uilleam said as he stepped forward, wanting to get the introductions out of the way so they could move forward. His thoughts were already on what came next. “I’ve heard quite a few things about you.”
The man with the scar shrugged, as if that were to be expected. “And you’re the man I’m told I need to see.”
Wasn’t he always? “I have an offer for you. Should you choose to accept, this can prove beneficial to both of us.”
Jetmir nodded, gesturing for him to sit. “I’m listening.”
“Mikhail Volkov intends to use you as a means to an end,” Uilleam said rather bluntly, almost amused by the expression that crossed the man’s face.
As if he didn’t know how fucking ruthless those Russians could be.
“He intends to have you murder his beloved son as a means to spark a war between your organizations.”
One of Jetmir’s men muttered a curse, responding in Albanian as if Uilleam didn’t speak the language. He hardly ever entered a room where he couldn’t speak the language of whoever he was meeting.
Exactly for purposes like this—when people attempted to share secrets without him knowing.
Bully for him.
Jetmir waved his hand to silence the man, moving his gaze back to Uilleam. “How do you know this?”
He thought the answer would be obvious. “Because I’m the man he hired to see it done. I wouldn’t if I were you,” Uilleam said with an edge to his voice as his gaze shot over to the man who hardly looked old enough to even be sitting at the table as he reached for his weapon. “My mercenary has an itchy trigger finger, and I don’t care enough about your life to stop him from taking it.”
The threat certainly changed the atmosphere of the room. What had started as something of a friendly conversation had grown tense, and he was certain that if Jetmir didn’t speak soon, his agitated underlings would take matters into their own hands.
“Why are you telling me this?” the Albanian finally asked, his gaze hard now.
“As I said, I have an offer for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“Let’s say you were to attack a Volkov, but perhaps you didn’t kill him. Maybe you were feeling sentimental that day, but either way, I’d imagine if he were to survive his attack, those Russians might be inclined to do business with you.”
Jetmir seemed to mull it over. “That’s a lot of risk I’d be taking.”
“Should the risks truly be a concern if the reward is so great?”
Jetmir didn’t get a chance to answer before a door on the other side of the room opened and closed. The only blond amongst the Albanians. Uilleam wasn’t sure what it was exactly—he’d only been in the man’s presence for little more than a few seconds—yet he got the distinct impression that he didn’t quite belong with the others.
The way they all seemed immediately aware of his presence, yet not a single one of them looking in his direction.
He set them on edge.
Why was that?
“I don’t go into anything I’m unsure of,” Jetmir said with a shake of his head, as if that were really supposed to mean something to him.
“If I had allowed a man’s lack of vision to hinder me, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”
“Is that a fucking insult?” The other Albanian from earlier asked with a twist of his lip.
Uilleam knew his sort—young with something to prove. Not realizing that it was never in their best interest to anger someone who was so far above their playing field, it was a wonder they were in the same room together.
“I’m not sure,” Uilleam replied dryly. “Did it sound like one?”
It was nothing short of a miracle that Jetmir managed to keep him in the chair with a heavy hand gripping his shoulder.
But he wasn’t the only one on the defensive.
The blond moved before Uilleam had a chance to look up, and the only reason his heart didn’t skip a beat was how quickly Skorpion was on his feet, gun aimed.
Ah, so he was something of a cleaner—the one that cleaned up the mess behind these two brothers—and undoubtedly the one they called on when they needed something grisly done.
This one, unlike the other, couldn’t be made to heel. Uilleam saw it the moment he pulled a knife from his pocket and spun it around in his hand.
“Oh, this one isn’t afraid, is he?” Uilleam asked, eyeing the towering blond with heartless blue eyes.
This one had seen the worst the world had to offer—he often saw this same expression reflected in Synek’s eyes. But unlike his mercenary, this one didn’t seem to embrace his darker urges—he seemed tormented by them.
“Valon,” Jetmir said with a snap of his fingers, as if commanding a dog. “Enough.”
And as quickly as he’d been readying to strike, the man settled once more.
He’d certainly make a fine mercenary. With just a bit of work and polishing, he could fit in properly amongst his ranks.
But ... today wasn’t the day for that.
Besides, he already had one slightly unhinged killer at his beck and call—two would just be overkill. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t serve another purpose …
“Barring any unforeseen circumstances, this should all be rather straightforward.”
And should something come up, he already had a backup plan in place.
Jetmir seemed to contemplate his answer. Power corrupted all those that craved it. It made a mockery out of men.
And despite how this meeting had started, the Albanian was finally coming around to his line of thinking.
19
Nostalgia
There were moments with Orion when it felt as if they were back where they’d been before she met Uilleam and everything had changed.
Karina hadn’t realized then how simple things were. A part of her missed how predictable her days had been, when the most she’d had to do was get herself dressed and walk into an office in the middle of the city where she sat and wrote about the happenings of people around her.
If nothing else, there had been a certainty to her work. In some ways, she’d known what to expect, but now? Now, she wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
The beginning stages were always the hardest, and she knew that well enough. As it stood, she had only accomplished the first step in avenging her daughter with Grimm now locked away in Gheenă, and Jackal here now with her.
But there was still much left to do, and as it stood, she wasn’t nearly close enough to getting to Uilleam just yet.
Sitting at her vanity, running a brush through her hair, she contemplated what was coming next.
The building she’d purchased in the city—one that would be hard pressed to be linked back to her, considering the sheer amount of dummy corporations she’d used to get it—was still undergoing renovations, though according to the contractor, the space would be available within the next couple of weeks.
Once it was, she would need to find people to work for her—people she could trust. But she didn’t know the first place to begin.
Tossing her hair up into the messy bun she’d been favoring as of late, Karina started for her closet to get dressed but was interrupted by a knock on her door.
She expected to find Kava there once she opened the door, but instead, she found Orion, whose bruises had faded a touch, and he was carrying a vase of white roses.
Smiling at the sight of them, she shook her head. “I think I’d remember if it was my birthday,” she said, considering that was the only time Orion brought out flowers—the lone gift she didn’t begrudgingly accept from him.
“I don’t remember you being this much of a smartass,” he said as he slipped by her. “Can’t say I’m a fan.”
“Who do you think I learned it from?”
Orion scoffed, that effortless smile she’d always loved so much back on his face. “I’m a saint.”
“As all sinners would say,” she rebutted easily, turning in his direction. “But why are you bringing me flowers?”
“They’re special,” he said, setting them on the nightstand next to the ultrasound picture she’d meant to put away before she’d climbed in the shower earlier.
Orion, though it was impossible for him not to notice it, pretended as if he didn’t see it before turning to look back at her.
She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Why are they special?”
“You know in some cultures, white symbolizes mourning? All black has never really been your thing.”
“I’m—”
“Allowed to mourn,” he cut in before she could finish, seeming to know what she’d been about to say. “Whether that’s one day, three, or thirty years. You mourn however long you need to in whatever way you see fit because it’s not up to anyone else how you get to feel. You can’t put a timestamp on this kind of thing.”
Karina folded her hands in front of her, thankful she had gotten better control over her emotions in the past few months. The last thing she needed was to cry whenever this was brought up. The key was to keep herself busy—to keep moving and focus on anything other than the emotions that clogged her chest.
“I don’t think it’s healthy to allow these feelings to linger,” she said softly, a confession she hadn’t thought she would ever have to make. “The best practice is to keep moving forward without lingering on the past.”
His lips turned down at the corners. “Who the hell told you that?”
A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “My mother.”
It was clear from the expression on his face that he didn’t know what to make of that. In all the years they had known each other, Katherine very rarely was a topic of conversation, and even when she was, it was only ever in passing.
It—or she—was one of the many secrets she’d kept from everyone around her. Not because she was embarrassed of her mother—she was the only one she’d ever have—but just as she’d felt when she was a little girl, Katherine wasn’t like other women.
She was something entirely different.
“Forgive me, but that’s bullshit,” Orion said rather candidly. “You have to let yourself feel things, otherwise all that shit’s going to come back up in a way you won’t like. Not to mention, it’s always better to learn from your mistakes unless you wanna repeat them.”
“What was my mistake?” Karina asked before she could stop herself.
Orion didn’t answer but rather tucked his hands into his pockets.
“This is the part where you say, ‘I told you so.’”
Because he had.
He’d warned her before anyone else had gotten a chance to. More so than her own mother, considering it had always been Katherine’s plan to have their paths intersect one way or another.
Orion had attempted to protect her from being hurt by Uilleam and what he was capable of, yet she hadn’t listened.
“What good would there be in me saying that?”
“It’s true.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You warned me.”
“Stop.”
She looked up, surprised by the heat behind that one word. “What—”
“Stop blaming yourself.”
“And who should I blame?” she asked, feeling as if her chest was dangerously close to cracking open. “Him? Should I blame him for being the man he always was—who everyone made him out to be?”
In the end, it didn’t truly matter that he hadn’t known it was her meeting with Jordan Omerti—it could have been anyone.
Uilleam was as he’d always been.
She’d been the one foolish enough to believe that he could change.
Orion did his best to hide his frustration with her, but she saw it clear enough with the way he scrubbed a hand down his face. “You don’t—”
An audible yelp interrupted them, and before he could stop her, she hurried past him and down the hallway.
Once she rounded the corner, she hadn’t expected to find Kava pressed against the wall with Jackal’s fingers wrapped around her throat. Her face was turning an alarming shade of red, her knuckles blanched where she gripped his forearm, attempting to pry herself free.
But if Grimm hadn’t been able to best him, she surely couldn’t either, considering he had more than a hundred pounds on her and a foot.
“Jackal!”
It didn’t matter that her own voice echoed in her ears. He didn’t seem to hear her or recognize the fact that he was currently choking the life out of Kava.
A slick, oily feeling coursed through her chest, but when she heard the audible sound of Kava choking, she didn’t have a choice.
“Destul, Jackal! Nu misca.”
It was as if a switch had been flipped on inside him—or rather, one had been turned off—because the moment she told him not to move, he seemed to freeze in place, slowly dropping his arm to his side, sending Kava to the floor, choking as she gasped for breath.
The director had warned her that there would be an adjustment if she chose to take him on. A chance she would have to use the conditioning they’d tortured into him to get him into line.
The optimistic side of her had hoped it would never come to that. That she would only ever have to treat him like a human being, and eventually, he would be all right.
Now … she wasn’t so sure.
And she hated that the man had been right.
She hated that she had to use his native language against him, but some desperate part of her was glad that this had been enough—that she hadn’t had to use the careful wording of his kill phrase that would turn him into the mindless assassin he’d been trained to be.
“What the hell—?”
But before Orion could finish that remark, Kava struggled to her feet, waving a hand though she was still trying to catch her breath. “It was—” She coughed almost violently, tears shining in her eyes. “It was my fault. I startled him.”
Jackal didn’t correct what she said nor did he offer any explanation at all. He merely stood there, his gaze now on the wall.
This was going to be harder than she originally anticipated, but she also knew she had to do something. Otherwise, this could be worse in the future.
“You’ve been awfully quiet, Kava,” Karina remarked when it was just the two of them after they’d left her home to venture into the city.
Reluctantly, Orion had agreed to watch after Jackal until they returned. Though, he made no promises about not shooting him if it came to that—which she hoped it wouldn’t.
Kava, despite what had happened, didn’t appear shaken up anymore, though Karina did notice th
e way she rubbed her throat when she thought she wasn’t looking.
She’d suspected Kava had her own ghosts she was running from in New York. She could tell from the way her expression had changed from the moment Karina mentioned they were coming here.
Kava was still terribly quiet as she stared out the window. “It’s never felt like home here.”
She certainly understood that feeling. “You didn’t grow up here?”
“The Colorado mountains actually,” Kava answered with a sad sort of smile that made her appear years younger than she already was. “The people were … different.”
“What made you leave Colorado?”
“My father got a new position at a different company, and they needed him to relocate. It was a big deal for the family,” she added, almost robotically as if that exact phrase had been repeated to her over and over again. “It was a better opportunity for us.”
Karina hadn’t forgotten how Kava hadn’t wanted to talk about what had happened and what had ultimately made her want to leave everything behind. But now, she seemed more open, but she didn’t want to push her too soon.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” she whispered because even though she was curious enough to ask, it was still her story to share.
“It’s not that I don’t talk about it,” Kava said quickly as if she felt the need to explain herself. “I’ve just ... no one’s ever asked for my side of the story.”
Because it was often quicker to make a snap judgment based on what they’d heard rather than waiting until the truth was revealed.
“I’ll listen, if you want to tell me.”
Kava stared down at her hands as she chewed on her bottom lip, seeming unsure, but just as Karina thought to change the subject, she finally spoke.
“It all started on my eighteenth birthday,” she whispered, her voice shaking at the end.
Karina wasn’t unfamiliar with trauma. She knew how difficult it was to talk about even years later. She knew all too well the way it could linger in a person to the point that it corrupted whatever happiness one thought to find.
“My … friends wanted to take me out for a birthday dinner at a local club. There was a—” Kava swallowed, her voice catching. “Boy. There was a boy who I liked who came along for the party. He was nice and charming, and I thought he was cute.”
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